My stories highlight and explore the major stories of the day through the lens of education, power and innovation. A senior editor at Forbes, I edit the America's Top Colleges, 30 Under 30, Most Powerful People and 100 Most Powerful Women packages. I didn't start here. It's been a winding road through the halls of People,The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, AP and Village Voice. Email: choward@forbes.com Twitter @CarolineLHoward

4/30/2011 @ 10:21PM6,341 views

Names You Need to Know: Yarn Bombing

Graffiti’s gone highbrow, again, as evidenced by the new “Art in the Streets,” show at L.A.’s Museum of Contemporary Art. But it’s also gone soft, pretty and feminine–losing none of the pow or politics in the process.

In contrast to spray paint and paint markers, here’s an interesting trend: yarn bombing, also known as guerrilla knitting or knitting graffiti. It began in Texas and has become a global guerrilla art movement.

“Fluffy stands for the softness of the wool we are using,” said one member of this knitting duo to The Economist’sProspero blog earlier month.

The term ‘throw-up’ comes from the graffiti scene and means ‘to leave a quick tag’ somewhere, a kind of signature. The other meaning of ‘throw up’ is ‘to vomit’ which we refer to on purpose. In a fluffy, non-violent way we want to ‘throw up’ in anger about things that annoy us.

Such as nuclear power. Their anti-nukes tags in yellow and black have turned up in Düsseldorf and Duisburg on trees, street lamps, bridge banisters and the state parliament building. What separates them from their spray paint peers? “We don’t damage anything.” Noted.

Jennifer Sharpe/via Flick

In a decidedly more Christo and Jeanne-Claude vein of changing the cityscape to provoke a second look–even long stares and a smile–at the humdrum, there is the Los Angeles “Yarn Bomber,” who just this week dressed a bear statue in Griffith Park in a hand-crotcheted hoodie in shades of green. Said Marshal Barrena, the park’s senior gardener, to NPR: “It puts a little spring in your step, seeing something like that in the morning.” It was taken down.

Graffiti is illegal. While many of the old school artists have turned jurisprudent, including my longtime friend, Chris Pape (Freedom), featured in the MOCA show, L.A. tagger “Revok,” whose work is also on display,was sentenced this week to 180 days in jail for vandalism. And New York graffiti artist Angel Ortiz, who goes by the tag name LA II, also included, is locked up at Rikers Island for graffiti.

But the beauty of yarn bombing, besides its beauty, is no harm (just snip it off), some foul, all play.

Stay tuned for International Yarn Bombing Day on June 11.

This post is part of an ongoing effort to crowd-source a repeating feature in Forbes magazine entitled Names You Need to Know. We are looking for the people, places, products and ideas that will have significant impact in the near future. Join the ongoing conversation here.

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